A New Dawn
by TheDragonLover
Summary: I need to stop making so many new stories...to put it short, these are a bunch of oneshots with Character/Shadowpaw pairings, otherwise known as 'XXXXPaw'. New project I wanna try, anyone have support?
1. SonPaw, Our Island

**Alright, I've decided to do a bunch of oneshots and such, and you wanna guess what they all have in common? They all have a pairing that has Shadowpaw in it! Yep, it's a new project that got going after me and a friend (Dalsson and Co.) had a conversation talking about my goal to write down every single Sonic pairing in existence – which, by the way, is going very well, with over sixty so far! This first one is, of course, starting at the beginning – Sonic and Shadowpaw, otherwise known as SonPaw. (Yes, I will put 'paw' to the end of every shipping name from now on! MUAHAHAHA!!) And, since the damn chapter names don't appear unless you have more than one chapter to start, the chapter title is:**

* * *

**Our Island**

As the blue hedgehog ran around the great open fields of Green Hill Zone, he thought of all the recent events that had led up to today. It was as if it was all years ago, and yet it had only happened in the time-span of a little more than a month. Funny how time seems to slow down for the 'Fastest Thing Alive', but, then again, he was always impatient. A minute could feel like hours, as his past experiences have told him, and that could be good or bad. It could drive a person insane.

But, even when things were slow, he seemed to have the best of luck; for example, they had no leads on the whereabouts of Eggman, and – lo and behold – he sends them a letter telling them that they had three days to deactivate his weapon of destruction before he took over the world with it. He was basically inviting them in, giving them a baseball bat and begging them to smack him. Also, the last time that there was a 'slow' period, with no crimes or anything happening to cause a ruckus, he learned that Amy had finally admitted her defeat. And, of course, it was hard to believe at first – Amy? Give up on _Sonic?_ But, it came from Cream's mouth that the pink hedgehog was tired of him ignoring her and such and was going to look for someone new. The blue hero felt a bit guilty, but he knew it was for the best. After all, he _liked_ Amy, but only as a friend. She just came on a _little_ too strong. Now that the tension she used to create was gone, they could become peaceful companions, instead of the chaos that used to consume their lives before when she would beg him to marry her. Those days were (thankfully) long gone.

So, it all started a month ago, right after Amy had let loose the news that she was done. Sonic was baffled by her sudden surrender, and had actually worried about her so much that he went to go talk to her. She had said that she was fine, however, and no matter how many times he asked she would not tell him exactly what it was that made her stop – she just kept saying that 'she was through'. Now, he had to thank her dearly, and he only hoped they could still be close friends.

Soon afterwards, when he was still hanging around her in confusion (not used to the absence of her tackling him every chance she got), he got to meet some friends of hers that she would hang out with at times. Rouge was one of them, and along with her were some new faces he didn't know, but he soon got introduced to them all.

Gem was a fairly gentle and easygoing dragon – a rare species he was glad to have seen – and was actually quite beautiful to even him despite the complete difference in animal; she was light green with scales so smooth that you couldn't even tell they were there, and her wings were tinted a slight olive color and seemed to be a little bit bigger than Rouge's. She was normally wearing a sort of poncho (the color changed everyday) over a tan hide-colored dress, making her look like an Indian or something. Looking into her eyes was like staring at two Master Emeralds, and she had such an atmosphere that even the moody, broody Shadow the Hedgehog and the antisocial Knuckles the Echidna could relax around her. She could even make Sonic take a few minutes out of his busy schedule to rest, not moving and not caring, and she was the only one who knew how to keep him sane while doing so. It was as if she had a sort of magic, but when he said so to her she just laughed and patted his shoulder. She was a strange, exotic person, indeed.

Then, there was Salzar, the red lizard who liked to joke around. Sonic was glad to know him, since it made him feel better that he wasn't the only guy and he hated being surrounded by a bunch of girls, and he was a good guy as well. He was always laughing at something, making a joke with Amy or Sonic, and he made friends almost instantly. He had a sort of lopsided smile that could conjure up such good feelings it made you want to smile back, and he was really the 'life of the party'. He didn't seem to have a bad bone in his body, always making sure to pardon himself when leaving the house or ask politely to come in. In fact, he had actually called the blue hedgehog 'sir' before they got introduced, and it still puzzled Sonic to this day why anyone would talk like that. But, it _was_ funny when he would tease the other girls by saying 'ma'am', and they would get mad at him and tell him to stop, especially…

He smiled, slowly coming to a stop to stand at the edge of a cliff and look over the waters rising and crashing in the distance, and as the salty wind rushed up to meet him he took in a deep breath and sighed out, "Shadowpaw…"

The feline was about as black as Shadow, but her hands and the very tip of her tail were white, giving her the irony of her name. He had actually asked her about it once, and she had gotten so touchy about it that he had backed off while saying 'sorry' many times. Sometimes, he actually feared for his life in there, when the arguments would get so heated that Shadowpaw would stand up to talk firmly to the others. Her voice rarely rose when she was angry, but if she wanted to get your attention, you would be able to hear her from three blocks away. On the subject of Salzar's funny business, he teased her everyday and called her 'ma'am' so many times that it was surprisingly she hasn't succeeded in killing him yet. She would threaten him each and every time, but she might as well have been talking to a brick because he still did it. She had the temper of an inferno, and yet when she was happy, it was as if she was a little child like Cream, sticking her tongue out immaturely and giggling a little when she was thinking of a joke. In fact, she got along really well with Amy, Cream, and Vanilla, although she had a totally different viewpoint on everything; she didn't like to go shopping, she hated dresses, blue reminded her of water (she hates water, something both her and the blue hedgehog had in common), and the best food in the world to her was tuna. Cream wrinkled her nose and said that it smelled funny, and Shadowpaw was offended by the comment so much that she actually defended her tuna by talking about other smelly foods, and in the end, she won.

Not wanting to risk teetering over the cliff, Sonic took a couple of steps back and sat down to collect his thoughts, musing silently as the wind howled up over the plunge of the water to the point of the rocky overhang. Many things had happened that month, and even though it was as messy and chopped up as the waves below him, it still all made sense. He couldn't explain how, or why, but it did.

Only a week after meeting everyone, Sonic felt that he had known these people for most of his life. Although it still wasn't the same degree of friendship that he had with Tails (who refused to come to the gatherings because he felt that his XY chromosome pairs were outnumbered too far), it was still something different than his other 'acquaintances' like Vector or Big; he felt he could rely on them to help him when he needed it most (although why he would need any is controversial), and he felt comfortable when he was with them because they acted as if they looked forward to him coming everyday. Eventually his stays became longer, and by the end of the second week he would spend at least half an hour talking to them, which was big considering his character. He even met some of them outside of Cream's house (for that's where they come together to chat with Amy), like Gem at a café and Rouge at the Mystic Ruins, and he would stay and chat with them there because he felt a need to do so with people who he was familiar with; although he could always do that with Tails, he knew almost everything the young fox was thinking, and it was refreshing to get a taste of something new, a different viewpoint to look at.

The third week, however, was when things got a little squirrelly; as Sonic and the others were enjoying the breeze outside, Eggman finally made his appearance and attacked them when they weren't anticipating it and made them extremely vulnerable. As Gem took Cream to safety, everyone else stayed out to fight – except for Amy. Truth be told, if Amy hadn't given up on chasing Sonic, the blue hedgehog wouldn't have been out there in the first place, and she would have been outside daydreaming about marrying him and be the prime target to kidnap. Since she did, though, she was inside talking to Vanilla when the attack started, and she stayed inside to look after Cream with Gem as the others battled with Eggman and his giant robot (really, they aren't any different each time he makes a new one – he didn't see why the doctor kept up his antics if it all just came back to the same result). In her place, someone that was totally unexpected…

If anything, she was probably the best choice out of them all (after all, he couldn't kidnap _Sonic_), but it was still unbelievable when his claw-thing deployed and grabbed Shadowpaw around the middle like it normally would Amy. They were shocked so much that they were distracted from his guns, and then they had to dodge the shots and allowed Eggman the time to burrow into the ground to escape, hostage in tow. After the initial shock of the situation, Sonic snapped out of it and prepared to do what he did best – rescuing – but when the others offered to come, he told them that they couldn't. It was his job to save people, and they had all been put into danger just because he knew them personally. It was his fault, and he was going to fix it by himself. So, he ran off alone into the tunnel to follow Eggman, leaving behind a worried Amy and crew and picking up a small sense of doubt as his quick footsteps echoed across the walls of the long, winding hole.

He ran for a long time (or, at least, he thought it was; he couldn't tell because he was underground), and he was slowly beginning to doubt himself the farther and farther he went. Finally, he stopped and listened, trying to find out whether he was close yet, but nothing echoed from the dark depths of the tunnel. Finding it a bit eerie, he took a rock from the wall and dropped it to see where it would go, and as it started to roll behind him he grinned at the knowledge that the passageway was starting to slant upwards toward the surface. Feeling his confidence renew itself, he revved up his feet and went back to running, not even near tired as he finally came out of the darkness and into the blinding light.

After his squinted eyes were able to focus on the change of lighting, he looked around the familiar landscape in shock as he wondered what Eggman wanted to do in the Mystic Ruins. He wasn't going to summon Chaos again (not after _that _disaster…), and there was nothing else of importance there…but, he remembered back to when he went towards the ruins to find the doctor's ship, and he retraced his steps to find that the conniving villain had gone back to his old hiding place with his giant ship. Grinning at how easy this seemed, he got onboard of the Egg Carrier II (it looked like a giant flying carton of eggs, of course) before it took off to the skies. He knew Eggman was waiting for him, and so he wasted no time in finding where Shadowpaw was kept and breaking her out, and he found the doctor just outside as they both ran out to try to escape. With all of their encounters, there was a big battle, and (so I won't bore you with the details) when it was over, Sonic typically crashed the ship into the water. Saving the world just wouldn't be saving the world without crashing something, in Sonic's book. Unfortunately, the blue hedgehog wasn't as lucky as he were last time, and instead of being near the Mystic Ruins, they found themselves on a totally unknown island with only the broken radio from the Carrier to use to call for help. After several tries, they gave up, and Day One on the island began rather roughly…

"_What do you mean, we're stuck?" Sonic was used to getting thanks for saving someone, but instead he heard the familiar angry tone of the feline as she scowled at him with her arms crossed. She protested, "You're the 'Fastest Thing Alive'! Can't you, like, run on water?"_

"_I _could,_" he admitted, but before she could yell at him further he added, "if I was alone and I knew where I was going. With someone with me and no clue where we are, we'd probably drown eventually after days of running and stopping. Besides…I can't swim."_

"_Well, neither can I! But," she kicked a pebble that was beside her feet irritably, "I wanna get off of this boulder sitting in the middle of the ocean…"_

_Sonic sighed at her stubbornness, not realizing until now how annoying it could be, and went about looking for some food. He found some fruit growing nearby, and he quickly picked some and shared with her, sitting silently as the feline grumbled about heroes who needed saving themselves. He wanted to get angry at her, but he knew that she had a right to be so sour after being captured by Eggman, rode a falling ship into the sea, and got stuck on a deserted island in the same day. That would ruin anybody's day._

After one more day on the island, the two of them were getting kind of tense around one another; by Day Three, they had established separate sides of the alcove for themselves and even collected their food separately, with Shadowpaw mostly fishing and Sonic sticking to the fruit. He caught her desperately trying to reach someone with the radio, and for some reason it left him feeling a little irked as he stared up at the stars in hopes of finding a familiar blue and yellow plane in the sky. He wondered if they were looking for him yet, considering that it had only been a few days, but news of the ship's crash should have reached them by now and it was probably only a matter of time until they were found. All he had to do was endure.

As the week sluggishly went by, stress and tension was elevated as they tried hard to put all of their energies into positive or productive things (since they would go insane if they did nothing), but it became a sort of contest between the two of who could do something more useful; Shadowpaw made a net while Sonic had a makeshift basket for the fruit, and she made a raft while he made a bridge over one part of the river so he could get to the other side without getting wet. Eventually, things got so strained that he actually snapped at her when she growled at him. After that, they didn't speak a word to each other, didn't even _look_ at each other as if they didn't exist, and it was when they slept facing away from each other and backs to the fire that Sonic realized that they were taking it too far; it didn't help for them to be bickering like a bunch of little kids when they could actually be trying to make smoke signals or something to attract attention to them and get rescued.

So, as she was asleep, he snuck out of the 'camp' (if you could even call it that) to sit in the trees and try to figure out how to start a fire in the treetops. Several times the sticks would slip out of his hands before he could get a spark going, and once he dropped the fire so that it started to lick up the trunk of the tree and he had to leap out of it before he was burned alive. Getting frustrated with the thing, he tried numerous other methods of getting attention before the night was through, and Shadowpaw actually found him on her way to the river passed out on the ground with burnt sticks and leaves all around him. For some reason, after that, things all changed, and although he didn't quite understand it he didn't look the gift horse in the mouth and instead got her to work together with him to send smoke up into the sky many times each day. With work keeping him occupied most of the time, he calmed down enough that he was back to his calm self, and Shadowpaw actually became a rather serene person as well; they held many conversations over the night bonfire of very interesting subjects, and he was glad that she was composed enough that he could get to know her better, a bit more in-depth than at Cream's house since it was just the two of them.

"_So," the hedgehog looked up at the feline poking the wood in the fire with her own stick and asked, "what about your parents?"_

_She was quiet for a bit, continuing with her poking as the crackling of the fire was his only answer, before she threw it rather roughly into the flames and stared at it as it was gobbled up greedily. She hesitated, and then answered rather quietly, "My family was killed a long time ago, when Eggman came and attacked our hometown in hopes of taking over and creating 'Robotopia' or something like that." She scowled momentarily, wrinkling her face up with bitterness towards the doctor before it returned to its somber attitude. "I was the first one to get out of the house before it crumbled, and I stood there and watched as my home was destroyed with my family inside." She gulped, a lump seeming to form in her throat at the remembrance, and silence once again fell between them. It was a creature that slinked in and out of their conversations each day, leaving awkwardness in its wake. Sonic chased it away, however, when he looked down at the fire and asked, "How old were you?"_

"_Five."_

"_Hm." Sonic put his chin in his hand as he rested his elbow on a log, thinking about something. Then, after glancing up at her amber eyes staring intently into the fire, he looked back down and told her, "I've never known my parents." He didn't know why he said it, but he felt that he should at least try to give her some consolation by talking a little about himself. When he noticed her head turning up out of the corner of his eyes, he knew it had worked, and he nodded as if agreeing with himself before saying, "I've been running ever since I can remember, fighting Eggman wherever he went." He glanced up to see a wry grin on her face, and he smiled briefly before returning his eyes to the diminishing flames before them, feeling kind of uncomfortable now that his words were left to hang in the air, waiting for her to do what she will with them._

"_What a childhood, huh?"_

_He smiled again, this time without looking up, and nodded. "Yeah…what a childhood."_

It wasn't long before another week had passed, and it was during the third week of their stay on the island that he sort of settled into the lifestyle they had created for themselves. Time passed by slowly, but surprisingly it didn't annoy him as much, and he just took each minute as it came while they hung out and talked about various subjects, all the way from the stars to the long lines in the grocery stores. They didn't argue at all during the rest of their stay, and it was quite amazing that this was the same feline who had been so stubborn and angry back home. It was as if she was a totally different person…

And, she had told him that the same happened to him.

"_Ya know," she brought up one day as they were fishing together in the river, "you've changed a lot in the past few weeks."_

"_Really?" Sonic shifted the stick in his hands that was connected with the net before looking over at her and tilting his head. "What do you mean?"_

_She leaned back and put an arm behind her for support as she sighed and fished one-handed. "Well, whenever we were all hanging out, you were kind of quiet and tried to not stick out, and whenever we _did _get you to talk, it had something to do with Eggman." She grinned with him at the reminder of the doctor. Then, she added, "And, the first week or two, I kind of thought of you as an arrogant prick who was so impatient and thought he could do anything." She smirked and mocked, "Let's show them the _real _power of teamwork!"_

"_Hey!" He shoved her a little with a laugh. "I like that line!"_

"_Yeah, well, it's corny." She stuck her tongue out at him immaturely, and he rolled his eyes and went back to his waiting as a more comfortable silence came between them. It was no longer the hulking monster lurking around them; it was as if it was a playful dog that nipped at their heels and obeyed them whenever they wanted it gone. They fished for a while longer, waiting until the last possible moment to pull up the net, and when they returned to their camp they cooked a lot of it with some pieces of fruit and made something sweet with it. After eating it all eagerly, they sat back and looked up at the stars slowly appearing out of the darkening rays of the sunset. Not much was spoken until Sonic brought up a good point._

"_Ya know, this is all great and everything, but once we get back, it won't be just the two of us." He glanced over at the feline who nodded silently, and he raised an eyebrow before continuing, "We'll have air-conditioning, full course meals, and lots of people crowding around us who won't leave us be." He realized that the way he said it made it sound as if it was a negative thing, and after a while of thinking he found that it was, in a way. After all, he enjoyed this type of relaxing, where it was almost complete solitude that woke you up each morning and caught you fish for dinner. This type of solitude – a solitude for two – was his thing._

"_But…" His thoughts were interrupted by the feline speaking up, and he listened carefully as she suggested, "We could still hang out or something, right? I mean, we'll still be friends like this…right?"_

_The hedgehog sighed. "Well, I can't promise that it'll be exactly like this…" He then smiled at the sad look on her face. "But, it won't change that much. We'll just…be surrounded by people."_

_She nodded, accepting that answer as they reverted back to silence, watching the stars twinkle until they fell asleep._

It was two weeks and three days after they crashed that they were found by Tails' plane, and when the fox came down he greeted them happily and apologized for how long it took. Sonic told him with a smile that it was alright, and then Shadowpaw excused herself for a moment. He told her to not take too long (his impatience might have come back with the fox's arrival), but after a while of talking to his buddy he started to grow worried when the feline was still gone. Finally, after half of an hour, he told him to wait for 'a tic' as he ran off into the forest, hoping that she hadn't slipped into the river or fallen into some undetectable hole. He was surprised to find her sitting in a tree on a hill far away from the beach that had a perfect view of the ocean, and he leapt up to find her looking solemnly across the glistening waters. A frown deepening on his face, he asked her why she was sitting here.

"_We're being rescued! What are you doing all the way out here? The plane's waiting."_

_She just shook her head, refusing to use her voice, and after looking at her oddly and being puzzled, he held out his hand to help her down and said, "Come on, let's go."_

"_Go where?" She looked at him with a face that said she regretted being rescued. "Back to the house where everyone talks to you but doesn't really know you? Or back to the normal friendship where we saw each other maybe a couple of times a week?" With the reason she was so upset revealed, she looked down at the ground below them as if she was at an all-time low. "I've never had someone who actually _talked _to me, and _listened_ to me, until I was trapped on this island with you. And now, after all that's happened…" She nearly whispered the words, as if ashamed by the very thought, "Do I really wanna go back?"_

_He could understand what she was feeling; he actually was reluctant to be cast back into the fray, after having such a good time on the island with her. It was almost like a vacation for him, except it meant a whole lot more. She was determined, thoughtful, and had about the same thoughts as he did. And she wasn't just agreeing with him because he was Sonic the Hedgehog; she actually agreed because it was her _exact_ thoughts. Out here in the middle of the ocean, it didn't really matter _what _you were or _what_ your name was. It was _who_ you were that made a difference._

_He put a firm comforting hand on her shoulder and stared at her, telling her matter-of-factly, "You may not _want _to, but you have to. People are waiting and worrying for us, and we can't be selfish and ignore them just because we don't want to go back. It may have been just us two for a while, but now we have to go back home." Then, as she looked down reluctantly at the ground and sighed, he grinned and patted her on the back. "Besides, we can _always_ come back."_

_She looked up at him surprised, and she asked incredibly, "Really?" When he nodded, she grinned and gave him a huge hug, laughing, "Thanks, Sonic!"_

"_No problem," he chuckled as he patted her on the back, glad that he could make her feel better. After all, what was the point of saving someone if they weren't happy? Although he deduced it as the right thing to do, it always made him feel better inside and made him wonder whether it was boosting his ego or something. Still, as the feline hugged him, he got that same feeling in his gut, and he grinned at the strange clenching before looking down at her._

_She had been hugging him for at least ten seconds…_

"_Err…"_

_At this strange, confused sound of his, she immediately sat up straight and let go of him, but that quick movement unbalanced her and she teetered a bit on the branch before falling off of it with a yelp. Sonic was, of course, already on the ground by the time she came down, and he caught her with ease as he noticed how light she was. It couldn't be healthy to be so skinny and nearly weightless._

"…_Whoops…?" She chuckled nervously, and he grinned and set her down on her feet as she looked at her feet in embarrassment. To try to ease away her humiliation, Sonic reminded her, "Tails is waiting for us, remember?" She nodded, and when he extended his hand as an offer, she gulped and took it carefully (and still a bit reluctantly), asking a bit warily, "You won't tell anyone about that, will you?"_

_Sonic grinned his heroic grin (he always had to 'do it at least fifty times a day', as Amy and the others liked to poke fun at him about it) and teased her, "Only if I get a hug like that every day!" His grin stayed as she blushed and shoved him (but playfully), but as they started to run (well, really he was the only one running, he just kind of dragged her along) he noticed that she gave a soft smile to what she thought was his back. Of course, it _is_ kind of hard to smile behind someone's back if their back is beside you. Smiling to himself when he got to Tails and the plane and said they were ready, he added jokingly, "I guess it's time to leave our island!"_

_Tails nodded with a smile and got into the pilot's seat, but as the hedgehog and his companion got onto either wing to balance it out, she said, "Our island…it has a nice ring to it." And Sonic couldn't help but agree._

As Sonic sat reminiscing, he was startled out of his daydreaming when suddenly he was tackled from his right so hard that he fell over, rolling onto his back as he whirled his head around in shock to wonder what the heck just hit him. When he caught sight of the mischievous amber eyes and triumphant smirk, however, he calmed down and his spikes flattened down as he told her, "I hope you hit my spikes one day when you try to sneak up on me. Serves you right."

"Well, _excuse me!_" Although they seemed to be having an argument, Shadowpaw was smiling, and the glomp-tackle-hug turned into her laying beside him in the grass as she told him, "I was just fulfilling a promise."

He nodded as they both turned their heads to look up at the sky, thinking about things in silence. Even though he had been kidding, she had seemed to have taken the oath seriously and made sure that she found him every day just to give him a hug and say 'hey'. And, personally, he didn't mind it, as long as the prolonged hugs were saved for when people weren't there to stare at them oddly. Tails had actually asked him about the strange exchange that the two had, and the hedgehog just shook his head and said it was just the feline's bizarre tendencies that fueled it. Maybe he was just a bit embarrassed by it, but he didn't want to let anyone know. Keeping it a secret for some reason felt like a rush to him, and since he loved running that was a feeling he craved constantly.

But, he did like to relax every once in a while, like they had back on the island, and he smiled as he thought of how it became nearly a weekly thing to sit around and do nothing for a while. It wasn't too long, for a blue hero like him had many things to attend to, but it did help him for whenever he had serious problems or needed to think things through. In fact, there were some things he liked to think about during these peaceful phases, and he appreciated the feline being there for whenever he needed to talk to someone about those things.

Sonic looked over at her following the clouds with her gaze like they were goldfish in a giant fishbowl, and he spoke up carefully, "Shadowpaw?"

"…Hm?" A little preoccupied with her own thoughts, she shook her head and looked over at him to show he had her full attention, curious as her species was portrayed to be. His mouth twitched at the thought of those infamous sayings she hated so much ('Curiosity killed the cat' is the worst in her opinion), before he asked slowly, "Do you believe in 'love at first sight'?"

"No." Her answer was blunt and simple, almost killing the conversation right there, but Sonic was determined to get his point across before she tore it apart.

"I mean, when Amy first saw me, she fell for me so hard that she literally _fell_, and I had to save her. And…" The thing that had been irking him came back to him, and he mumbled, "I've seen so many places and faces, and yet I haven't even come _close_ to…_that…_"

She turned fully on her side so that she was completely facing him, showing that she was about to go into a serious debate. If she was looking at you from the side or over her shoulder, you had her attention, but if she was _only_ looking at you or was as she was right then, that meant that she was _really_ paying close attention to everything you said; none of your words would fall on deaf ears if she was facing you with her eyes nearly glued onto your face. It was a sort of uncomfortable feeling to be watched so wholly, but he just shook it off as he listened to what she was going to say.

"So what if Amy said that she loved you? I know that I've said I love tuna, but if it was either me or the tuna can, I'm sorry, but the can's gotta _go_." As she grinned at his familiar smile, she continued more seriously, "Also, she gave up on you a while ago. If it was _real_ love, a love that _couldn't_ be tested by time or space, then she could have waited until the day she died to get it in return. What is the point of love if it goes away after a while?" She was quiet for a moment, thinking deeply about the subject, before she suggested, "I think love takes more time than that; it doesn't just sweep you off of your feet and say 'honey, I'm home!' as you swoon or faint or whatever. If it could last the tests of time and distance, then it can't just be a flimsy little thing that is suddenly there and could just as suddenly disappear. It has to _grow,_ to spread and fill up every cavity of your heart, and it takes time to get that little acorn into a tree. But," she smiled at him, "I'm sure that when it has, you'll know it, for sure and for real."

"You know," Sonic spoke up, finding it kind of odd, "you talk about so many things as if you've been through it all, and it seems as if you've had a lot of experience…" Not really able to find a question to conjure up from that factoid, he let it hang in the air as he waited for a response from the feline. It _was _kind of odd, though; every bit of wisdom she had ever said had a tie to something that had happened to her, such as creating a fire did with trying to survive on her own for years. If he used that same principle with what she just said now…

Her face turned a bit red, and she rolled back onto her back to stare at the sky again as she hesitated and said, "Well, I'm just really smart, is all!" The way she danced around his statement made him a bit suspicious, and he wondered about it for a while before suddenly something dawned on him.

"When did we first meet?"

Shadowpaw scrunched up her face in a thoughtful frown, and she guessed, "I dunno, I think around four months or so…it's been a long time, I can tell ya that much." Then, she looked over at him and inquired, "Why?"

Sonic grinned, mischievousness that was usually so common on the feline's appearing in his, and he lied, "Nothing, just wondering." He left her to ponder about his words as he looked back up at the clouds, still grinning as he found one shaped much like a heart. Ironic, he thought before he sat up and got to his feet, finally feeling the itch to run again creeping up his legs like ants. Shadowpaw got up beside him and asked, "Where are _you_ going?"

The blue hero looked at her, that grin seeming to forever be imprinted on his face, and he told her, "Let's go to Our Island."

* * *

**Aww, don't you wanna kill me for being so cute? XP Yeah, well, too bad, I have to write more oneshots! I wrote this in the course of two or three days because I had nothing better to do since school was canceled for two of those days cuz of those damn fires… And, yes, before you guys all ask, I will do a pairings with EVERY character – that means Shadowpaw will have a pairing with some girl characters, too. For those of you who have cows about this kind of stuff, the chapter name will warn you because it'll say which shipping it is (i.e. RougePaw is Rouge and Shadowpaw). In fact, here are all the names of the shippings I shall use so that you guys don't get confused:**

**Guy/Shadowpaw Pairings:**

**Sonic/Shadowpaw is SonPaw (might become my second fav…)**

**Tails/Shadowpaw is TailsPaw (creative, I know!)**

**Knuckles/Shadowpaw is KnuxPaw**

**Shadow/Shadowpaw is ShadPaw (yay, my fav!)**

**Vector/Shadowpaw is VectPaw**

**Espio/Shadowpaw is EsPaw (ooh, I love it when they end out like that – like BlAmy, aka Blaze/Amy!)**

**Charmy/Shadowpaw is CharmPaw**

**Jet/Shadowpaw is JetPaw (lo and behold, shocker isn't it?)**

**Storm/Shadowpaw is StormPaw (hmm, really?)**

**Eggman/Shadowpaw is EggPaw (ooh, creepy, how will I do that one?)**

**Metal Sonic/Shadowpaw is MetalPaw (yes, he's included, too! But, he's the only robot…sorry!)**

**Chaos/Shadowpaw is ChaosPaw (but she hates water…)**

**Silver/Shadowpaw is SilvPaw**

**Mephiles/Shadowpaw is MePaw (yay, another one of those that just work out when typing it!)**

**Big/Shadowpaw is BigPaw (err, how will I do that? I guess we'll see…)**

**And any others I am missing…well, I'll fill it in later!**

**Girl/Shadowpaw Pairings:**

**Amy/Shadowpaw is AmyPaw (seriously, why do I bother typing this? I think you guys get the point)**

**Cream/Shadowpaw is CreamPaw**

**Vanilla/Shadowpaw is VanPaw (gosh, that'll be hard…maybe I could cheat and make it a friend-fic instead??)**

**Blaze/Shadowpaw is BlazePaw (yay, kitties!)**

**Tikal/Shadowpaw is TikPaw (heh, 'Tik'…as in ticks and fleas or tick-tock, tick-tock…Lol-moment)**

**Rouge/Shadowpaw is RougePaw (wow, no one saw that one coming)**

**Wave/Shadowpaw is WavePaw (gasp, it's so hard to figure out!)**

**And any others I am missing…well, I'll fill it in later!**

**Sorry, guys, but I've taken Sally, Mina, Elise, Cosmo, and Maria off of the list because…well, they're not really too important to life. I mean, Big is more important than Sally is right now! I think they deleted Mina from existence, too…and isn't Maria dead? Sure, Tikal is too, but she came back as a ghost! And Elise is annoying in my opinion…I don't know why, but she just is. Also, I've decided not to do Cosmo because the fans would be too freakin' vicious and, I really don't know enough about her. Deal with it, or don't read. Your choice.**

**So, if you want any news of what pairing is next or how my list of all the pairings is going, give me a holler via either PM or reviewing (hopefully the latter, winkwinknudgenudgehinthint) and just ask. It's not rude to be curious, but just pray you don't die. Ha, lol, kidding, just go ahead.**

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**DL ('Dragon Lover')**


	2. MePaw, Staring at the Darkness

**Mephiles/Shadowpaw! Ooooh, a dark and angsty idea indeed…well, I can't say it will be long, but I will try. And it's the thought that counts, right?? Enough stalling! Enjoy!**

* * *

_Staring at the Dark_

Shadowpaw still laid there in her bed, complete darkness all around her; there wasn't a speck of light to be seen anywhere, and illusions danced in her vision as she groaned and rolled over once more. She had been tossing and turning all night, unable to fall asleep because of the sinister dusk that had crept upon her unexpectedly. The power had gone out, and so she was left to wonder what could possibly be in front of her face as she begged her eyes to close and her mind to shut down. But would her wish be granted?

She could swear she felt something creeping up her leg, and she shivered and rubbed at the area with her toe before realizing it was just her imagination. She could swear she felt a cold wind blowing through the room, but she knew that her window was shut and the curtains were closed. She could also swear that there was weight beside her on the bed, but she knew that couldn't be right. She was alone in her house, trying to go to sleep; who the hell could be there?

She sighed softly and raised her arm to scratch her ear, but when it brushed up against something that was too firm to be a blanket her eyes widened in shock and she froze in fright. After a hair-raising moment of silence, she slowly moved her arm and trialed her fingers around something that seemed like an arm made up of flesh and bones and wondered aloud, "What the…" She moved it up to where a shoulder would be, and then to what could have been a smooth yet hard furry chest, wincing when she felt something slice her pointer finger. She hissed in pain, but then she thought she felt something touch her hand, and she recoiled back and stuttered, "Is someone there?" She reached out and felt around a bit, but whatever it had been was gone, the supposed 'flesh and blood' replaced by ruffled up blankets and a pillow. She sat up in her bed, looking around in vain as she tried not to freak out. "H-hello?"

When nothing answered her after a while, she sighed and turned her head down to stare blindly at her lap. "I must be losing my mind…"

"_Is it losing…or finding?_"

She gasped and looked around again. She _knew_ that she had heard something that time, she _knew_ it! She gulped again and swung her legs over the side of the bed as she said, "Show yourself!" How she expected to see them either way was unknown, but she needed to make sure she wasn't crazy. Confirmation was good when you were blind to the truth.

There was something like a chuckle in the night, and as she felt something like a cold breeze chill her spine, someone grabbed a hold of her hand that was injured and lifted her finger up, as if they were examining it. The touch was terrifying, but she couldn't move, feeling as if her legs were blocks of lead and losing whatever words she was going to say. She had such a terrible painful twisting feeling in her stomach, as if someone were taking a knife and shoving it clean through her before turning it clockwise and then counterclockwise. She was trying to speak, but all that came out was a sort of strangled whimper.

There was another laugh at that, and this time she identified it as being a masculine tone, unnerving her even more. What was a guy doing in her house in the middle of the night, in complete darkness, and _touching_ her? She leaned backwards and tugged her arm, trying to get away from him, but his grip was firm and she did not escape. Her breathing was fast and ragged, revealing how afraid she was right now. God help her, she couldn't do _anything!_ _Oh, please, tell me that I'm dreaming, that I'll wake up and this will just be my imagination!_

To her disgust, as the mystery person held her hand, the other was brought up and caressed her cheek, and she finally snapped out of it to raise her free hand up to smack it away. Unfortunately, he seemed to either have lightning reflexes or be able to see in the dark, for he snatched that hand up as well and pushed her backwards onto the bed, leaning forward so that she was trapped between his rather painfully sharp chest and the rumpled blanket atop of her bed. Whatever the hell was on his chest was trying to dig deeply into her skin, and his hands constricted her wrists so tightly that she felt the circulation being cut off slowly.

Her heart rate picking up dramatically, she stuttered, "What do you want?" She was afraid to know the answer, but the question slipped out before she could stop it. Her hands were now pinned to the bed on either side of her, making it impossible to escape, and it made her shiver and try to squirm away from him, although she had no luck.

"_It's not what _I _want…_" His voice was dark and deep, almost like the night itself as he chuckled at her feeble tries to get away. "_It's what _you _want._"

His words confused her, and with the panic rising up into her throat like bile she gasped, "What _I _want? I want the power back on. I want to go to sleep. I want _light._"

She then felt what she assumed was his forward press down against hers, and she noticed something quite chilling; although her breathing was quick and rapid, she could feel no such sensation from the male. There wasn't any rising or falling of the chest, or even his breath playing across her face. It was as if he wasn't _breathing at all._

"_Light?_" She nearly started at his sudden repetition of her word. After a moment of silence, she quickly nodded, praying to God that it would all end soon.

"_Light…_" He scoffed at the idea, and she was still stuck on the fact that she couldn't feel any puff of air from the movement. "_Light is a feeble little thing, a candle blown out by the wind or a light turned off with a flick of the switch. There is never an everlasting glow, but there is _always _the night._" One of his hands let go of hers to come back and stroke her cheek again, and since she couldn't do anything she didn't even bother struggling. He then asked her, "_Why would you want to stand alone in the light when you could be surrounded by the darkness?_"

Then, before she could answer him, she heard the whirring of a generator before the power kicked back in and the lights flickered on like pale ghosts in her room. She shakily sat up as she found herself alone on her bed, shivering as if something cold was still touching her. There was no sign that whoever it was had been there…

_…I-it must have been a dream… _She turned back to her bed and went to fluff up her pillow again, but a sharp stab of pain made her hiss and flinch back. At first afraid to look, she tentatively raised her hand and stared at the cut glaring an angry red at her as a single drop of blood trickled down her finger. A breeze let in by the window chilled her to the bone, making her heard turn towards it to stare in wide-eyed silence. The curtains fluttered once, and then all was still again.

* * *

**Yikes, creepy! I couldn't help but make it dark and scary, as I was writing this during the late night and early morning. I just had to post it, so you're lucky that I love you guys so much! Even though no one's reviewed yet…**

**(cough cough) See ya later!**

* * *

**DL ('Dragon Lover')**


	3. SilvPaw, A Brighter Future

**Yes, I is back! (laughs maniacally) Aren't you sad now? Well, too bad! I have decided that today's pairing will be Silver/Shadowpaw! Weee! Random, huh? So, with today's pairing announced, let's have some fun!**

* * *

_A Brighter Future_

The silver hedgehog floated on through the giant skyscrapers, memories of them all in ruin fading away as he examined the new peaceful looking city, bustling with activity and life. He stared in awe as people were walking down below him, hurrying to possibly their jobs or their homes, unaware of Silver watching over them like a guardian angel. As he felt his mind begin to slip away, he tried to summon every memory he possibly could, but it seemed as if they were, too, being erased by the reflowing of time like the old future had. Saving the future seemed to have changed everything drastically, and it was all slowly sliding away into the unknown as he struggled against it. He wanted to remember everything, he wanted to know what happened…

"Blaze…" His voice was filled with sorrow and grief, mourning his lost friend who had left to protect him. She had told him that only she was able to do it, to finally defeat Iblis…but, he hadn't expected _this_ to happen. He hadn't been expecting her sacrifice. Now…she was gone forever, and there was nothing he could do about it except remember.

But even that was becoming a problem.

"No…" He held his head with a groan, his psychokinesis weakening a bit as he tried to fight it away, but everything was being torn up in his mind like paper in a paper-shredder. He feebly tried to grab memories, to hold onto them tightly, but they just slipped out of his grasp and disappeared forever. Panicking, he landed on top of a building so that he could focus all of his power on his mind. Valiantly standing up to whatever it was that threatened to tear him away from his memories, he was still no match, and he found his memory depleting into something different. Blaze wasn't here anymore in this changing city, he was all alone on the cold, dark streets, only he was left…who _was _Blaze? Was that…someone important? What…how did he get here? He gripped his head and groaned, wanting the pressure on his head to dissipate, wanting to be able to breathe…

Suddenly, the terrible sound of something ripping and shattering to pieces made his head snap up to find the source of the sound, completely tearing his attention from the pain in his head, and as he squinted his eyes he saw a bluish-greenish vortex opening up in the sky. He wondered aloud, "What could _that_ be?" It was like some freakish portal to another galaxy, and he caught sight of a leafy green forest that for some reason looked eerily familiar. Then, he saw something shot out of it, like an arrow on a deadly course, and he tried to identify it when he realized it was someone falling from the sky. Immediately leaping into action, he levitated himself and rushed quickly to catch the person, hoping that he wouldn't be too late, he couldn't let another person die on him…

_Wait, _another_…? _Puzzled momentarily by his thoughts, he noticed that he wasn't going fast enough, and suddenly the pulsing of something he had in his possession made him open his mouth and yell, "Blaze!" He didn't know why, but his mouth opened of its own accord and let loose that name that suddenly felt familiar to him. He felt a strange but powerful energy course through him at it, almost as if the name was pushing him onward, strengthening his psychokinesis as he blasted towards the person and quickly caught them before slowing down to a swift halt in the air. After getting over the energy rush he had, he looked down at the unconscious black feline in his arms, and for some reason one name came across his mind…

"Blaze?"

Slowly, the cat moaned and stirred awake, blinking her amber eyes open and squinting them against the bright sun above them as she looked up at his face. She had a soft white furry muzzle with the edges of her cheeks up in something like whiskers, and she had silky black hair-like fur that just went past her shoulders, brushing up against his arms in whispers like soft sheets as you make a bed. Her outfit was a bit out-of-this-world-ish to him, with the shining leather overcoat making a sort of dress on her as its length covered her legs and shoes completely, and the collar being a bit pointed to stick out like devilish wings on either side of her face. At first blinded by the light, she got a good look of his face when he tilted his head curiously at her, his own golden eyes staring at her in confusion. She blinked once more, remaining quiet for the time being, and Silver asked her, "What happened? You suddenly fell from the sky, and…" He frowned, a sudden feeling of recognition coming over him seemingly out of nowhere. "Why do I feel as if I know you from somewhere?"

After a moment more of a confused look in her eyes, he descended so they could stand atop firm ground and let her out of his arms. She was a little wobbly at first, to which he quickly grabbed her shoulder to steady her, but she waved him off with a shake of her head, and he reluctantly let go as he eyed her for any more unbalance. She looked extremely dizzy and lightheaded, and it took a while for her to regain her bearing. Finally, she looked at the white hedgehog and said carefully, as if perhaps a little unsure, "Your name is Silver."

His eyes widened in shock, and he asked incredibly, "How did you know?" To suddenly find a stranger in an odd outfit who fell from a hole in the sky and then find out that she knows your name…it was kind of creepy.

She sighed and shook her head. "I guess that time has been fixed in the future, or otherwise you would have recognized me." She then looked over his shoulder towards the buildings standing tall and proud behind him, dwarfing them in comparison. It was as if she was a little relieved to see them, and as his bewilderment grew she asked if they could sit down since she was still feeling a bit dizzy. They found some crates to rest on, and as Silver continued to stare at her eager for answers, she looked up at him and started to explain.

* * *

"So," he carefully summarized her story after she was done, "you say that I returned to the future?"

"Yeah," she nodded and swept her gaze around the city, "along with a purple cat named Blaze."

"…Blaze?" The name that he had said before came back to him like turning on a light bulb, almost as if he had forgotten it as soon as he said it, but this time he felt a small pressure on the back of his head. He raised a hand to brush over it, finding nothing unusual there, and shrugged as he deduced that it was probably his imagination. He then looked at the feline incredibly and told her, "You know, that all really sounds hard to believe."

"I know." She sighed and shook her head, looking doubtful even to herself. "I can still feel doubt about it all whenever I think about it myself. But…" Her gaze went up to the sky, where she had fallen through the vortex to here. "Another hedgehog I know had the same memories as I did about you, and I don't think we're _both_ delusional."

"Another hedgehog?"

"Yeah." She looked back down at him and nodded. "His name is Shadow, and he still remembered everything even though the others couldn't. He was the one who got Sonic to help him create a portal to bring me here, to the future."

"What is _your_ name?"

"Hm?" The question seemed to have been out of the blue, and it took her a moment to answer. "Shadowpaw. It's kind of ironic, really, since my hands are really white." To show him, she grabbed the fingers of the glove on her right hand and pulled it off, revealing her hands to be just as she said; they were white all the way up until her wrist, where it was overtaken by black fur once more. The contrast between the two colors was like night and day, and it gave someone the sense of yin and yang when staring at it. As she went to put the glove back on, Silver stopped her by suddenly grabbing hand and staring at the back of it intently. A scar that went from right under the pinky to the base of her thumb glared angrily at him, and he asked carefully, "Where'd you get this from?" He didn't know why he asked, but he was also curious about the mark.

She shifted uneasily on the crate and looked down at the ground. "Well…I got that while I was fighting robots on my way to Eggman's hidden base." Then, although she looked a little sad, she smiled and said, "That was where I first met you and Blaze; you used your psychokinesis and accidentally shoved me along with a bunch of robots at one of Eggman's security robots." She rubbed the back of her neck and chuckled. "It hurt."

"Err…sorry?" Silver didn't exactly know how to respond to that, and was confused when she laughed and shook her head at him. She took her hand out of his and put the glove back on, and as she made sure it was on right and tight, she told him, "It's alright, though; it turns out that, because of this, I remember everything that happened. It's like a glitch in the system or something; I don't think anyone was supposed to remember it." She crossed her arms and tilted her head slightly, thinking deeply about the matter, and as the white hedgehog once again got the feeling that it looked so familiar, she muttered to herself, "Shadow does, too, but he seems to know a lot of things that we don't…"

Then, as a thought seemed to just come to her, she frowned and tilted her head to the other side, curiosity coming to her eyes as she asked, "Hey, where _is _Blaze?"

Silver shook his head, having trouble grasping what she was trying to tell him as his head started to ache. "I don't have any clue what you're talking about…" He couldn't remember the name even after he said it, and yet it felt so familiar…who _was _this 'Blaze'?

"So…" She looked at him with an almost sympathetic frown on her face. "Does that mean that…

"You're all _alone?_"

Suddenly, as the last word hit his eardrums, he received a splitting headache that threatened to tear open his skull, and he cried out in pain before holding his head and leaning forward to get into a sort of fetal position while sitting. It was as if that word – 'alone' – was the key to opening a bunch of memories he couldn't remember himself, like a cheat code for a game. Shadowpaw gasped and reached out to him, asking worriedly, "Are you alright?"

Instead of answering her question, he suddenly sat right back up with his golden eyes wide, causing her to leap backwards as he shouted, "Blaze!" Everything was coming back to him at last, with the memories and such of all the things that the stranger had talked about, even the time where he noticed he had smashed her into a robot on accident. All the moments that he had dreaded their eminent demise in the old future that was controlled by lava, and every memory back in the past that included a blue hedgehog. He remembered the betrayal he had felt when he found out Mephalis was lying to him, and the rage he had had could only have been calmed down by Blaze, who said that they had to focus on saving the future. He wished he could be with his childhood friend right now. But, he knew that it was impossible, and yet he still wished…he needed to see her again…Blaze…but he was alone…

"_Blaze…_" Tears sprung to his eyes as the entire world dimmed into a murky underwater nightmare, and he closed them and held his head in his hands as he started to cry silently. _I can never seem to be happy…_ His hands gripped into fists with anger and rage. _Every time something good happened, there always had to be something equally bad to even it out…_ When he had met Blaze a long time ago in his childhood, she had become his only friend. But, her responsibility to the Sol Emeralds kept her from playing, and since she was constantly teased about her fire abilities, he was teased about being friends with her. Although the price wasn't too expensive for the award, it still irked him badly, and he never really understood why they were picking on her. Blaze had only said it was because of her 'current state', but he still didn't comprehend the problem.

_And, as soon as the Iblis is destroyed, she's taken away from me._ The most horrible feeling in his gut tore away at him, devouring him little by little as it laughed at him for being unable to protect her, or stop her. _I couldn't do anything…_

To his surprise, he felt slender arms wrap around him as he huddled on the crate, and as he felt the feline sigh mournfully he wondered how she could be so selfless, so thoughtful and considerate to someone that wasn't really a close friend. After all, if it were him watching her, he would personally keep far away, not wanting to get into the awkward position of comforting somebody. But…that was how Blaze was; she was always looking out for him, and, although she didn't hug him like this, she would always be there to comfort him. And, this feline, Shadowpaw, was as caring and compassionate as she was. Surprising himself, he reached up and wrapped his arms around her in return, and although she gasped in shock she did not pull away, and eventually she just hugged him tighter, trying to comfort him as best as she could.

* * *

As the twittering of birds in the morning pulled him from his slumber, Silver felt the strangely familiar terror of a blank presence in his mind, as if there was something missing. Confused, he opened his eyes and sat up form the bench he remembered he had chosen especially to sleep on, but the day before was fuzzy as if he had been drunk the whole day. In fact, much of his life was a blank, with only little bits and pieces shining in his memories. He glanced around the park, baffled, before his eyes landed on a feline beside him that made something click in his mind. Her amber eyes were open and staring back at him, like two needles piercing his soul in an uncomfortable yet gentle way, and he frowned as he tried to form words but only let a name slip from him that seemed to fit, and yet didn't.

"Blaze?"

She had been in a sort of calm contemplation with an almost grim cloud slightly shadowing her mouth, but then it dropped low into a disappointed frown as her eyes dimmed because of a single word, and he felt he had done something wrong as she shook her head slowly. "No," she sounded sad with her monotone voice, "not Blaze."

After a while of frowning, suddenly he was overwhelmed in a wave of memories that seemed to completely chill him to the bone. As he realized his utter mistake, the black cat before him turned away and got up from the bench they had shared as a bed, because (if he remembered right) 'it would be too chilly to sleep alone this time of year'. He had slept on one side while she slept on the other, with their legs kind of mingling together on accident in the middle. The seasons' changing was still a new thing to him, and so trusted Shadowpaw's word about 'winter' as he looked up at the gray clouds hanging far overhead and around at the dismal colors and mumbled, "Winter is almost upon us…"

"Yeah," she replied, maybe a little stiffly, "and soon we'll have to finally get a room or something. I've heard there's a nice hotel down the road." She jerked her head in the direction it was to let him glance over there and examine the tall building as she smoothed out the sleeping wrinkles in her clothes. He found the place kind of looming over them, but it was a very nice place and would protect them from the cold of the seasons. He didn't know why he bothered, though, since they had nice coats of fur to protect them, but Shadowpaw said they wouldn't want to have to endure the cold and she would get them a room at a hotel. They didn't mind sleeping on benches or beds together, because if they had to they would, but it was a bit awkward when people would assume things and give them these looks. It made things all the more uncomfortable for the feline, who still wasn't used to the future after a month of living her. Getting there around the middle of October, she said that although she felt the warmth of Thanksgiving in November, she didn't see any signs of it around her, and it made her a little sad.

As they started to walk in some random direction as they always did, he tilted his head up to look at the clouds again, seeming to mimic the feline down below as they both went along grimly and quietly. She always seemed to be a bit sad lately, with the way she would glance at him occasionally and give a silent sigh you could only see by examining her closely, or whenever she would slouch down in a seat while ordering food as if she just wanted to eat and leave. She did smile and was happy, but it seemed that most of her life was filled with some sort of disappointments.

And yet, the thing that really struck him as the most distressing of it all was whenever he would call her 'Blaze', and she would always say 'no, not Blaze'; a routine they had come up with in the past weeks. It seemed that it was the worse thing to do, to call a woman by another woman's name. And, with how often he did it accidentally, it was a miracle she didn't explode on him one day, or leave him for a while to show how angry she was. He remembered now, back when he was in the past, how the people he met would talk about her temper, and how she was a ticking time-bomb waiting to burst. Where, now, was that cat? Had she ran off and left an empty shell behind her? That was all Shadowpaw was: a shell, a mask, a shadow of what she used to be. Now…

She seemed so…broken down.

He _had _to ask her.

He stopped walking, and after a moment of her continuing on her way she halted as well, waiting for a moment before looking back at him and tilting her head in puzzlement. "Silver?" The simple call showed that she was confused, wondering why he wasn't moving and was giving her a look that wanted to interrogate her posture for answers. Eventually, she turned back towards him and took a few tentative steps over so that she stood before him, still looking for the reason that he was so disturbed.

He tilted his head down so he could look at her eyes, for she was just a bit shorter than him (her height was roughly 3", give or take an inch or two) and he had to use all of his willpower to not break at the bewildered look on her face and pretend he was just troubled by something. Instead, he reached out and grabbed her right hand, the one that he had accidentally hurt a long, long time ago, and asked her softly, "What's wrong?" Whenever he really wanted to connect with her, he for some reason grabbed that hand even when he didn't want to, because it seemed to really affect her attention and focus when he did it. Even now, she gave a short gasp and gazed down at the hand that gripped hers firmly, but then he loosened it so that it wasn't as harsh and desperate and just cradled hers gently as he looked down at it as well. He didn't hold hands a lot when he knew Blaze, mostly because she wasn't that much of a physical-comforting person, but with Shadowpaw it seemed to be most affective when conveying messages, such as a pat on the back or a hand on the shoulder; as the timeless saying goes, 'actions speak louder than words'.

With her full attention, he asked her, "Are you alright? You seem so…" He couldn't find the right word to describe it.

"Gloomy? Miserable? Depressed?" She slipped her hand from his and turned away so that he could only stare at her back, wrapping her arms around herself as if to protect her body from the cold. Concerned by the strange behavior, he stepped around her to face her again, examining her closed eyes with a frown as he debated about grabbing her hand again, but his arms stayed limp at his side as he just waited, for she could not stand there forever in the cold. Finally, she opened her eyes and looked up at him, startling him by how deep and pain-filled they seemed. She sighed and held a hand up to put it on his shoulder, but it wavered as she hesitated for a moment, and Silver found the courage once more to grab it. As he held up her hand in the chilling wind like a beacon, the volume of her voice lowered to a whisper as she said quietly, "I'm sorry…I'm making you worry." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "Don't. I'm supposed to be taking care of you." She gave a faint smile. "A guardian."

_A guardian…angel…_ Silver looked at her and said, "But, _why_ are you supposed to take care of me? Why are you here? Why don't you…" He gulped as a lump formed in his throat, afraid to say what he dreaded the most.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him, tears seeming to brim in her eyes. "Why don't I run away?" She finished his sentence a hundred times over with that phrase, but she kept going as her voice raised back up into a nearly angry accusation. "Why don't I turn my back on you and leave, knowing that you wouldn't remember me? Why don't I return to the past, where I belong?" One tear did find itself a way down her cheek, but before she could wipe it away the wind did it for her, tearing it from her cheek and freezing it before it hit the ground with a soft smash to break it. She closed her eyes, as if to not let anymore come out, and bowed her head, as if ashamed to have cried at all in front of him. He may have done the same to her, but she seemed to have a sort of pride he couldn't relate to. He felt, as Shadowpaw did to him, that he had a duty to comfort her if she was sad, and since she was crying he found that know was his chance. Before he could speak, however, she got the courage to speak up first.

"Because I can't.

"I can't leave you here, knowing that you would forever be unaware and wouldn't be able to care less." She opened her eyes to stare down at the ground, wet with the thought of future snow banks covering the world. "After I left, I wouldn't know what was important in my life anymore, because I had just walked away from possibly the only person who I really cared for other than myself. I know that you _need_ me, and, as funny as it sounds, I need _you._" She looked up at him and gave him another smile, but this one seemed as if it truly had some meaning behind it, not a feeble one made for show. She reached up and ruffled some of the fur on his head, and as he let go of her hand so that both of his could reach up and fix it all, she gave a small laugh and added, "Besides, I _can't_ go back, as in I _physically_ can't. I need two hedgehogs who know Chaos Control to create a portal to the past, you dork!"

He scowled, hating it whenever she would mess with his fur or called him 'dork', but she always had fun with it, and now as she started walking again with a grin on her face he found that he had one as well. _Well…I guess I'll let it slide, this time._ He quickly caught up to her and walked beside her on her right, making sure to reach over and grab her hand like a little kid would their mother.

_She needs me…_ For some reason, that made his smile that much brighter, and he found himself nearly dragging her along as she laughed and told him to slow down. _And I _definitely_ need her._

* * *

He woke up once more a couple of days after that, and to his surprise he just stared at a sleeping feline in shock as he collected thoughts in his mind. As soon as he had felt conscious, something felt different, and his heart nearly stopped beating as he sat in amazement. _I'm…I'm…_ His eyes were wide, his hands were shaking slightly, and he couldn't believe it. Everything sat untouched since the day before, and as he sat with the picture in his mind of the room last night, his jaw fell open.

He remembered everything.

He sat up in the bed they were in and stared at the opposite wall as he went over everything that happened yesterday. _We went to a theatre and watched a movie, and she spilled her popcorn halfway because she was laughing so hard, and then I went to go bring more, and…_ He smiled as everything that had ever happened to him was there, in his mind, milling about as if to say 'what, did you expect something different?', and he nearly jumped up and cheered loudly in joy before suddenly he realized that Shadowpaw was still asleep.

He stopped in his small happy dance to glance over again at the sleeping feline, dead to the world as she gave a soft sight and curled up more under the blanket. His overjoyed expression softened into a small smile as he crept over beside her and laid down, staring at her calm face in slight bewilderment. He had never seen her asleep before; he always fell asleep before her, and by the time he woke up she would be there watching him like the guardian angels she compared herself to. He had began to wonder if she ever slept, and now here she was, letting the rest of the world go by as she sat in sweet dreams with a wonderful smile on her face. _She seems to be having a very good dream,_ he assumed, and as he was still overcome by the two amazements of the morning, he just kept smiling as he watched her instead, feeling like they had switched places. _She must be tired, always staying up in the cold night to take care of me, so now it's my turn._

Feeling that time couldn't touch him in the early hours of the morning (the clock read five), he reached over and traced a finger down her cheek in amazement, wondering, _she looks so calm when she's asleep; there are no traces of sadness or grief like she usually has, and she looks quite pleasant when she's smiling._ It was as if she couldn't help herself, as if she was thinking of something so happy and joyful that she couldn't help but smile. His finger stopped in annoyance when he thought it might be because she was dreaming of the past, but then he shook it off as ridiculous and let his finger slide off to lay beside him once more. She took off her gloves whenever she went to sleep (for a reason that still escaped him), and as his hand itched to grab it again he wondered why it called to him so. _Maybe it's because it's the tie between us,_ he suggested to himself, _and it gets such attention because it is another mistake I've made._ A bit saddened, he finally gave in to his finger's twitching and crept his hand over to cover the scar with his palm, but gave a sharp intake of air as she moaned softly in her sleep and moved her legs a bit, perhaps uncomfortable in the unusual heat she found in the hotel room. That was probably what was keeping her asleep; heat did what the cold operated against, to let the living slumber in peace and not tear at them with icy fingers.

His hand cradled hers like a fragile snowflake and he whispered to sleeping form, "_Why do you remind me of someone who is gone?_" When he got this close and had the time to examine her, he realized that she didn't look that much like Blaze; including that she did not have the feathers on her head or the same eye color, she was a **black** feline with _white_ hands and a _white_ tip on her tail, and although the outfit looked similar, it was definitely not identical.

So why? Was it just because she was a cat? Was he that desperate to have Blaze back that he would symbolize someone _else_ as her? And at that person's expense?

He knew that it hurt her, to be compared to someone else she knew that, no matter how much someone wished, she could never be the same or live up to the same expectations. And, although she had said so many reasons that she couldn't leave, that couldn't just be it. There was something she was hiding from him; some fact, some thought, some secret, some_thing _that she didn't want him to know. Despite the age-old saying Shadowpaw had said she hated ('Curiosity killed the cat'), he wanted to know what tied her to him still, like the scar on her hand and the memories they both, when together at least, shared.

Finally, as the hours seemed to wear away slower than molasses in wintertime (not that he would know how fast that is), he felt her begin to stir, and he quickly let go of her hand and held his breath as she stretched her arms over her head to touch the headboard there and her legs to attempt to reach the foot of the bed. Acting truly like the feline she was, it made him smile a bit in the reminder of how Blaze would wake up, but when he realized that he was comparing them again he mentally shook it from his mind as her eyes fluttered open, a little reluctant at first until she noticed that he was staring at her. Then, her eyes shot open and got wide, probably wondering what he was doing so close to her and why he was awake before her, but before she could speak a word he avoided any questions by instead saying quietly, "You look awfully pretty when you're sleeping." Although it was something used to distract her from the strangeness of the morning momentarily, he found that his face got a bit red as he thought of how true the statement was, and Shadowpaw's face mirrored that blush before she sat up and got off of the bed, stepping into the bathroom to do whatever it was that girls did in there.

He sat up as well, but he stayed on the bed as he rested his back against the rather short headboard and let his head smack the wall softly with a _thunk,_ closing his eyes to think about what he had just said. _You look awfully pretty when you're sleeping…_ He hadn't been able to see that until just this morning, so it was a recent thought that he really had no control over and hadn't been nagging at his mind since he met her. At first, he had thought of her as strange but welcome company, since it kept all of his memories intact whenever she was around, but now it was kind of strange thinking of her leaving. They didn't really do anything monumental, because unlike when he was with Blaze, they didn't have anything important to do, no duties that required their immediate attention. A bit irked he was comparing her to Blaze again, he took his fist and pounded it on his forehead a few times, grumbling, "She's _not_ Blaze! She doesn't even _look_ like her! So…"

Then, he heard a heavy _thud_ in the bathroom, and he shot off of the bed like a bullet as he asked the feline inside, "Are you alright? Shadowpaw?" A bit worried when he didn't hear anything, he used his psychokinesis to open the door carefully to see her sitting on the ground, as if she had been swept off of her feet by something incredible, and she looked up at him with such an expression of surprise and shock he guessed what had made her fall.

She had realized that he hadn't called her Blaze that entire morning.

At the sight of him, she shakily got up onto her feet and nearly stumbled over to him, making him take a step back before she could run into him or anything, but she took that extra step and fell into him, collapsing into his arms as she nearly slipped out of his grip and onto the floor. He held on tightly either way, albeit awkwardly because he wasn't used to such weight and, to be frank, he used his psychokinesis powers so much that he had neglected his muscles. Using said powers to help her up a bit (proving my point), he looked down at her and tried to say something but couldn't find the right words to say. Before he could think for too long, she instead looked up at him and spoke before he could even plan to start, "You…your memory…" Not knowing what to say, he just nodded, and slowly a smile came to her face as her eyes shimmered with tears. Confused of why she was crying when she was happy, he was surprised when she hugged him fiercely and started sobbing into his fur, leaving him standing there with no clue what to do.

"What…" He looked down at her puzzled, a frown spoiling his face. "Why are you crying? Aren't you happy?"

"They're tears of joy, you dork," she gave a sort of choked laugh combined with a sob, and he found a smile creep its way onto his face as the feline continued to cry. Slowly, he got down to sit on the floor with her and hugged her gently, letting her sob into his chest with her arms wrapped around him like a teddy bear. Feeling better now that he finally got to comfort her, he closed his eyes and told her, "I don't want you to keep your emotions bottled up all the time, okay?" She gave a faint nod, and he continued, "And, if you ever need someone to talk to…" He hugged her tighter. "I'll be there."

"Thank you…"

Suddenly, he felt her tighten her grip on his waist and lean into him, and he opened his eyes just as her nose touched his and their lips connected. Shocked beyond any kind of surprise that could ever happen, he gazed in a sort of daze as she hovered there for a moment before withdrawing away from him and opening her eyes, looking a bit embarrassed that she had done that. When she saw the look on his face, however, she blinked and said carefully, "…Silver?" She looked as if she was scared she had broken him, like a favorite toy or an important vase that had been her mother's.

After a moment, a grin slowly came upon his face, and he told her, "That was my first kiss." A feeling he couldn't understand was welling up inside him, and he couldn't stop grinning as the feline looked at him sheepishly. She admitted timidly, "That was my first, too…" She looked as if she didn't know what the hell she was thinking, doing that.

His grin stayed evident on his face as he told her, "Well, how about we fix that?" He reached out and grabbed a hold of her arm, and her gasp was cut short as she was pulled forward to him and into another kiss, this one longer than the first. At first sitting with her eyes open wide in shock, ever so slowly she closed her eyes and let herself go, surprisingly relaxed as he kept her close to him. He didn't know what compelled him to do that, yet now that he did he couldn't help but feel like a weight was being lifted off of his shoulders that he didn't even know existed. His arms wrapped around her almost possessively, and he found he didn't ever want to let go. Unfortunately, the feline had other ideas.

"…Silver…wait!" She struggled a bit to sit up before he let go, confused at her behavior. Hadn't she been the first to kiss him? He looked at her amber orbs with questions but didn't say a word as he saw something like fear in her eyes. Why was she scared?

"Silver…" She looked down, as if ashamed that she had done something wrong, and then looked back up at him searchingly. "Is this…is this because…"

"Because…?" He frowned. What could make her so frightened that she didn't want to kiss? _Girls make no sense…_

"…Of _her?_"

"Oh…that…" Well, at least now he knew what bothered her. But now, he felt a bit hurt by the accusation, that he was only kissing her because of Blaze. And then, as that sentence went through his mind, he realized that it didn't make sense. Why would he kiss another girl _because_ of her? _After all…_ He looked at her steadily and said, "You look nothing like her."

For some reason, a smile came across the feline's face, and she gave a small laugh before she grabbed him into a fierce hug, burying his face against her chest. He blushed, feeling a bit awkward there, before she laughed again and gave him a small peck on the cheek. "Silver, you dork!" His face really red now, he gave a small groan when she ruffled his fur again, but she just laughed and continued to hug him tightly. And, frankly, he didn't want to move.

As long as he had her, he knew he could move on…to a brighter future. For the both of them.

* * *

**Aww, isn't that so sweet? (Geez, what is with me lately…?) FINALLY, a pairing where Shadowpaw gets a kiss! Haven't you noticed that? Oh, well, guess it's only me… So, I finally had to wrap this up before I went nuts, and so I give you the clue for the next pairing!**

**Extreme!**

**Ha, try to figure THAT one out! Have fun, and remember: Reviewing makes my heart grow fonder for you guys! (wink-wink, nudge-nudge, hint-hint) Bye!**

* * *

**DL ('Dragon Lover')**


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